1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic camera with a function of compensating for hand shake, a method of compensating for hand shake in an electronic camera, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
As hand-shake compensating techniques in conventional electronic cameras are known optical compensation techniques such as a compensation-lens shifting system as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 2006-33462 A and a variable apex-angle prism system. In the compensation-lens shifting system, a special lens for compensating for hand shake is provided in an optical image pickup system and the special lens is moved by an actuator so as to cancel hand shake. In the variable apex-angle prism system, a variable apex-angle prism filled with liquid of high refraction index is used and an apex of the prism is moved by actuator so as to change a light pass to cancel hand shake.
Meanwhile, as an image-sensor shifting system for compensating for hand shake is known a mechanical compensation technique, in which an image sensor is moved by an actuator to cancel hand shake. Further, as an image clipping system for suppressing effects of hand shake in a moving picture is known an electronic compensation technique, in which images are read at predetermined rate, and the same image areas are clipped from the respective images in accordance with image shake appearing between images, and the clipped images are used to compensate for hand shake.
As an image-shake locus restoration system is known an image compensation processing technique which performs a restoration calculating process using locus information on image shake of shot images to remove effects of hand shake.
Conventional electronic cameras use one of these compensation techniques. In particular, the compensation-lens shifting system and the image-sensor shifting system are widely employed in the camera industry.
Since the compensation-lens shifting system moves its optical system, this system has a disadvantage that lens aberration deteriorates image quality. In particular, when lens of a high multiplication factor is used, image quality is deteriorated significantly.
The image-sensor shifting system uses a light receiving element. This light receiving element is large in size compared with the compensation lens of the compensation-lens shifting system. Therefore, more power is consumed in the image-sensor shifting system to compensate for image shake of the same level.